


Before Knowing Remembers

by perfectlystill



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Living Together, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Temporary Amnesia, also: just me and my whims, as seek says: canon nudged to the left, ish???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25673707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: Michelle blinks, and the doctor comes into focus. Sitting up in her chair, she takes in the words like the shore takes in the waves, slipping in and out, focusing onfineandhead traumaandawakeandrecovery.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 52
Kudos: 171





	Before Knowing Remembers

**Author's Note:**

> Just as the production logo says at the end of _The Mindy Project_ : Not a doctor! I cannot even begin to fathom how medically inaccurate this is. 
> 
> Title from William Faulkner's _Light in August_.

May’s voice is a constant murmur, chatting mindlessly about the jam she purchased at the farmer’s market this morning, Happy steeping her tea too long and leaving a strong, bitter brew, the worn down soles in her old pair of Keds. 

They're the inconsequential stories she tells over Sunday night dinners, rice falling off her fork, slight smiles still sunbeams. Comforting banalities that would excite Peter, asking to try the jam, asking why she decided on blackberry instead of apricot. 

Ned sits on Michelle’s other side, hands fiddling in his lap, humming along despite his distraction. 

Everything goes in, and then back out. 

MJ’s hands are folded, still, feet solid on the ground, staring straight ahead until her vision blurs. 

Until there’s a new voice breaking through the haze, soft like May’s, careful and considerate. 

Michelle blinks, and the doctor comes into focus. Sitting up in her chair, she takes in the words like the shore takes in the waves, slipping in and out, focusing on _fine_ and _head trauma_ and _awake_ and _recovery_. 

“We expect a full recovery,” the doctor says. 

“Can we see him?” Ned asks. 

“Yes.”

Michelle is the first to stand.

Peter lies in the hospital bed, thin, bluish-gray sheet falling down his chest when he scrambles to sit higher. He groans.

“Hi sweetheart,” May says.

“May,” he exhales, relieved. There’s a nasty cut over his temperamental eyebrow, and bruises mottle his left cheek, cascading down his neck and slipping beneath the hospital gown. Michelle blinks away an image of what he might have looked like six hours ago, before surgery and a hefty dose of advanced healing. 

“How are you feeling?” May asks as Ned jolts forward, wrapping his arms around Peter. 

Peter groans again.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Ned apologizes, pulling back. 

“It’s all good,” Peter says, grabbing Ned’s arm to halt his stepping away. “I’m good, May.”

“You sure?” She narrows her eyes, the warmth she radiates blossoming in them despite the stern set of her mouth. 

He shrugs, accompanied by a wince. “Like any bad patrol.”

May shakes her head. She smooths Peter’s hair back and kisses his forehead. “No more bad patrols, then. Got it?”

“I’ll try.”

“That’s an order,” May says, voice wet in a way that could undermine her but won’t. 

Peter nods. His Adam’s apple bobs. He would do almost anything to stop the tears May blinks away from collecting in her eyes in the first place. 

“Good.” She nods too, hand squeezing his. 

When Peter’s eyes track across the room to Michelle, she attempts a halfhearted smile. She wants to lunge at him like Ned had, run her fingers through his hair like May did, and press her awkward smile against his dry, cut lip. She wants to remind him that she loves him, he’s an _idiot_ , and she’ll forgive him for the paralyzing fear that coursed through her veins when Dr. Cho called, because he’s the idiot she has chosen to love.

“Michelle,” he says.

The way the two syllables of her name fail to coalesce in his mouth returns her paralyzing fear, cold and hollow. 

She’s cleaned his cuts, applied pressure to deep wounds, iced his bruised body, shakily stitched him up. Peter’s gotten hurt more times than anyone could conceivably count, but he hasn’t had a near-death realization that he doesn’t love her. He hasn’t decided life is too precious to spend watching _Cold Case Files_ on their lumpy couch, protesting in the frigid cold and humid heat, eating her mom’s burnt cooking and witnessing her family’s ultra competitive streak while playing Risk. 

Peter loves her. 

Except his eyebrow furrows. 

“Hey,” Michelle whispers, rocking back on her heels and shoving her hands into her pockets.

“You didn’t have to come here?” 

“I don’t have to do anything,” she says instinctively. A regressive, defensive streak making itself known. 

Peter frowns, shooting confused looks at Ned and May. He drops his voice, but she hears him: “Did she find out?”

The doctor says something that sounds like repetition, like something he said in the waiting room but Michelle didn’t catch. She didn’t latch onto it. She didn’t believe it could have anything to do with her.

“The amnesia is mild. His memory should return in a few days or weeks.”

“Weeks?!” Ned asks, eyes bulging. 

“There’s no way of knowing precisely.”

Michelle swallows. 

“I’m confused?” Peter asks, unsure.

Ned smiles. His eyes are full of amusement, but his voice houses mild concern teetering on the edge of a freakout that’ll only make the entire situation worse. “You remember MJ, right?” 

“Yes.” Peter’s eyes cut to her. It feels like one: a sharp sting slicing across her lungs. “Decathlon. She goes to ESU, too.”

Peter’s eyes widen, horrified. “Oh god, I’m not stalking you,” he tells her.

Michelle presses her lips together, presses against a small smile that has no place here. “I know.”

“Pete, honey, you know you graduated two years ago, right?” May asks.

“I’m a junior?” Peter asks. 

May squeezes his hand, shaking her head. 

“I graduated two years ago?” he corrects.

“ _Oooooh_ ,” Ned drawls. 

His eyes find Michelle’s. There’s too much sympathy in them, and she shakes her head, blinking away tears. She’s had the embarrassing misfortune of crying in front of Ned and May before. She’s cried in front of Peter more than she’s cried in front of anybody in her life, except, probably, her parents when she was a baby. But he doesn’t remember her. Not really. 

He remembers when she became Academic Decathlon captain, and he remembers how she never gave him any slack (despite suspecting he was Spider-Man). He might remember seeing her at ESU orientation, nodding her head in his and Ned’s direction, awkward wave and tight smile, the conversation afterward sputtering to a stop.

She saw Peter swinging across campus sometimes, or caught sight of him rushing into the chemistry building, apologies tumbling out of his mouth like breaths. 

But he doesn’t remember crashing into her while sprinting across the quad, knocking her down, her knee scraping against a patch of ice. He doesn’t remember his profuse apology, accidentally accompanying her to her small, off-campus apartment where she patched up her knee and he missed his final exam. 

Michelle remembers the embarrassed, pink flush on his face, his offer to buy her a cup of coffee, re-giving his number. It hadn’t changed since high school, and she hadn’t deleted it from her contact list. She didn’t tell him that. 

Not until a year later. 

MJ remembers. 

Peter doesn’t.

“He should stay with you,” MJ says, continuously stirring the already dissolved sugar packet into her coffee. 

“He can’t stay with me,” Ned says.

“Why not?”

Ned sighs. “MJ.”

There’s no room in Ned and Betty’s studio apartment, and he won’t be able to explain how quickly Peter heals. “Okay, fine. He’ll stay with May.”

Ned levels her with a very stern look. “It’s better for Peter to live his normal life.”

Michelle arches an eyebrow, still stirring her cooling coffee. 

“You know what I mean.” 

“Ned, he doesn’t even remember me.”

“That’s not true! He remembers you were a hardass AcaDec captain in high school. And he knows you went to ESU.”

Michelle’s mouth pinches, a sharp, pulsing headache behind her right eye. “So he thinks I’m weird.”

“But in a really cool, mysterious sort of way.”

She scoffs, but she has to clamp down around a small smile. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. Also, he thinks you’re super funny and kind of hot.”

“Kind of?” she asks.

“This is pre-MJ Peter, okay, I cannot blow up his spot.”

She would roll her eyes if she wasn’t afraid it would hurt. Overtired and stressed. She tries to rub the ache out of the right one. “He shouldn’t have to recover in an apartment he doesn’t know. And he won’t feel comfortable with me.”

“MJ,” Ned says, soft, serious, sympathetic. “He loves you. Besides, May has that conference in Philadelphia in a couple of days. All of his stuff is at your place -- _His_ place.”

Michelle almost wants to object to May attending, but it’s a conference for (mostly) non-profit organizations that sprung up after the blip and the return of the blipped. They have a hearing with Congress in a few months. It’s not exactly a beach vacation, and Peter will be (mostly) physically fine by then. Mentally fine, too, except he’s lost four years of his life. 

Michelle wants to object, because Peter is fine, and in three days he can stay by himself in an apartment he remembers. 

In three days, he might remember the first time she kissed him. 

And in three days, she might not have to deal with this at all.

“You’re right,” she relents. 

Sipping her coffee, MJ grimaces. 

She added too much sugar.

Peter stays overnight for observation.

Michelle heads home after May kisses her on the head, squeezing her hand and promising she’ll be okay sleeping on the chair next to Peter’s hospital bed. Peter offers a dorky wave that pulses bittersweet around Michelle’s heart.

Looking around her and Peter’s one bedroom apartment, MJ feels the walls closing in, an empty and alone feeling bouncing between her childhood bookshelf and her lungs. She runs her finger along the edge of the picture Peter hung up, not quite level, a piece of scotch tape holding it to the ugly, gray wall: Peter has a large, floppy straw hat on his head, stolen from Ned, sunscreen visible on his nose. MJ holds her hand over her eyes, attempting to block out the sun, but she squints at the camera regardless. She can still taste the saltwater in the air, feel the humidity damp against her overheated skin, hear Peter laughing at Ned’s instructions ( _Fish face! The Scream! MJ, pretend you’re not just doing Peter a favor!_ ), feel the careless joy of being loved. 

It’s not fair that she had it less than twenty-four hours ago, watching Peter hop from their bedroom to the living room as he pulled on the Spider-Man suit, saying he’d try to pick up sandwiches for lunch on his way home. 

It’s not fair that she lost it.

Her shoulders are tense, and she tries to keep her steps even and her breathing normal as she climbs up the last flight of stairs. It’s a lot of stairs. 

Peter looms behind her, silent. She can’t even hear his footsteps. 

Michelle stops in front of their apartment, fiddling with her key. “It gets stuck,” she says, glancing at him, leaning her weight into the door as she pulls up. “You just gotta…” She wiggles the key and hears the door click, stumbling as it jerks open. 

Peter shoots her a smile, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Should I fix that?”

“No.”

“Sorry.” 

“The landlord knows. It’s fine. I like it. Makes it harder for someone to break in.”

He frowns, eyebrows scrunched together. “Oh. Cool.” 

Michelle’s not sure that’s true, the breaking in thing, but she and Peter are still in trouble for the water damage they caused while attempting to fix the bathroom leak they only made worse. He thought it was funny at first, and then it was frustrating, and they went to sleep with stress stuck between their eyebrows. 

In retrospect, the experience had been weirdly nice. 

She clears her throat, closing the door behind her and flipping the lock. “It’s pretty small. Um, the kitchen’s over there.” MJ waves toward it. “The toaster is in the cabinet above the microwave. We can’t run the microwave and coffeemaker at the same time or else it blows a fuse.

“That’s the living room. Area. Whatever.” She moves in front of Peter to lean her hip against the side of the sofa, nodding toward the small television. “We piggyback off our upstairs neighbors’ satellite.”

Peter and Ned spent an afternoon figuring out a way to steal it so they could watch some nerdy video game tournament. Michelle likes it because they get the movie channels that show the pretentious stuff on Saturday nights when Peter’s patrolling and she can’t sleep. 

“Okay,” Peter says, forehead wrinkling like he feels kind of guilty. 

The Robinsons are a mean, old couple, and Michelle thinks someone stealing their television signal is the bare minimum they deserve for all the inane, annoying complaints they’ve filed with the landlord. Peter had agreed. At the time. When he knew. 

Kicking gently at the coffee table, MJ warns, “It wobbles. When we’re really worried about it, we shove that copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ underneath the front left leg.”

“You like _Romeo and Juliet_?” Peter asks. 

“It’s my second favorite Shakespeare,” she says.

His mouth curves up in a pleased, excited smile. “It’s my favorite.”

“I know,” Michelle says. 

The smile disappears from Peter’s face, quick as the flip of a light switch. “Right. Sorry.”

“You’ve only read three,” she tries, softer. Michelle wants to ask him to stop apologizing. It’s making it worse. Her chest tightening with each regretful two syllable sentence out of his mouth. 

She shows him the bathroom, tells him about the terrible water pressure in the shower, how the toilet doesn’t flush if they don’t hold the handle down an extra second. Then, she’s the one saying sorry, heat in her cheeks as she shuffles around him in the small space. 

“It’s tiny and pretty shitty, but hopefully not too bad,” Michelle says, standing in front of their bedroom door. 

“No, it’s good,” Peter says. “Cozy.”

“I understand if you don’t want to stay here.”

He frowns. “If you don’t feel comfortable having me, I’m sure May would be fine if I went home.”

Michelle winces. 

“Sorry,” he says again. 

“I don’t feel uncomfortable, Peter.” 

“You’ve been blocking the bedroom door for almost three minutes.”

Swallowing, MJ throws it open before she can overthink it, urging him inside.

Michelle watches Peter look around their old bedroom with brand new eyes. The bed she made this morning after barely getting any sleep last night, the notepad on her nightstand, the picture she drew of the two of them and framed for their first anniversary on the dresser they share, only enough space in the room for one. 

“This is really good,” he says, leaning forward to inspect her drawing. 

Her heart does a truly idiotic cartwheel around her chest, and she wrings her hands. “Thanks.”

Standing up straight, Peter looks out the window. 

“The top two drawers are yours, and the middle one on the left,” MJ says, regarding the dresser. “I’m going to go and study, but um, you can get settled in.”

“Sustainable development?”

If MJ thought her heart was being dramatic before, it’s nothing compared to how her entire body freezes despite every molecule inside her vibrating with hope. “You remember?”

Peter glances down. “May told me.”

Michelle shatters. 

She was being silly. She knows that. Peter isn’t going to remember her today. He probably won’t remember her tomorrow, either. 

But the doctors assured her that he will remember. Maybe not all at once, puzzle pieces slowly slotting back into place. Maybe not in order, half of the border and then a random shape in the middle. There’s no guarantee he’ll remember the argument they had about his lack of honesty about Spider-Man before he remembers their apartment hunt. He might remember the time she was kidnapped before he remembers meeting her family. But he’ll remember eventually. They say he’ll remember all of it, maybe even some stuff he’d forgotten naturally.

“I’m sorry,” Peter says, a record stuck on a scratch, voice high. “It’s really cool that you’re getting a PhD. You’ve always been the smartest, most driven person.”

Michelle nods. “Thanks.”

She runs the shower (their water bill is going to be atrocious) and cries. 

She misses Peter. 

Not the man in her bedroom, but the one who kissed the sensitive spot behind her ear, knew about the sensitive spot behind her ear, discovered it when Michelle hadn’t even known it existed before him. The Peter who sent her pictures of dogs he wants them to adopt even though their building charges an exorbitant amount for pets, the Peter who bought her chocolates whenever she was writing an essay, the Peter who knew her and loved her. 

She cries because she feels selfish. 

This can’t be easy for him. He’s living with a woman he knew in high school, only friends in a nominal sense. He lost four years of his life in a new way, different from what the blip took from both of them. History sliding to the left before repeating itself. 

She cries because she’s furious that he can’t remember how much he loved her, and if all it took was a bump to the head (that’s not all it took, she knows that, too), then maybe he never really loved her how she thought he did. 

Maybe their relationship is more fragile than she wants to believe.

They order cheap pizza for dinner because Michelle doesn’t feel comfortable pouring bowls of cereal and calling it a meal like she once did. They sit on opposite ends of the sofa, watching _Jeopardy_ in silence until Peter’s phone vibrates with a call from Ned and he excuses himself to answer. 

Michelle cleans up. Brushes her teeth, washes her face, and takes some fresh blankets from the small linen closet, preparing a makeshift bed for herself on the sofa. 

She feels like a stranger in her own apartment. 

Peter probably does, too. She could tell him that. He might feel a little less alone. Or he might feel worse, the thousandth apology of the day slipping off his tongue. Michelle can’t risk it. She’ll lose it if he says he’s sorry one more time. 

He half-argues with her when she tells him she’s sleeping on the couch. 

“This is your apartment,” he says. “I mean, I don’t even remember it. I mean, you can’t sleep on the sofa. I’ll do it.”

“No.” She holds firm. “I don’t care if all of your cuts are scabbed over and all of your bruises are fading. You’re still hurt.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“I don’t care. I don’t need your chivalry.”

His eyebrows wrinkle, and he opens his mouth only to close it again. “MJ, come on.”

She narrows her eyes, and Peter ultimately relents. He’s much less stubborn with amnesia. That’s one positive thing about this nightmare of a situation Michelle can grab onto when she feels like part of her life has been ripped from her hands (if she ever finds the fucker who did this, she’s going to ruin them).

Falling asleep is easier than Michelle expects, the exhaustion of the last few days weighing heavy on her eyelids. She gives in to the pull of darkness, only to be (gently) pulled out of sleep what feels like mere minutes later. 

She blinks. 

“MJ? Michelle?” Peter whispers, hand that was shaking her awake leaving her shoulder like he’s afraid to touch her. 

“What?” she croaks, rubbing her eye and pushing herself up on her elbow. “Is everything okay?”

“I can’t sleep.”

She rolls her eyes. 

“Please take the bed. It’s… It’s your room more than it’s mine.” His eyes are wide and pleading, even in the dark. “The sheets smell familiar,” he whispers. 

“Oh.”

“It’s weird. Distracting.”

Michelle’s stomach knots as she sits up, grabbing her phone from the coffee table. “Fine. But only because it’s two in the morning.”

“Thanks.” Guilt and relief twist along his mouth as she stands and he sits. “Goodnight, MJ.”

“Goodnight.”

When she crawls into bed, she inhales. The sheets still smell vaguely like their laundry detergent, a little like her shampoo. She scoots over, veering onto Peter’s side to smell a hint of soap and sweat. 

This time sleep is a little harder to come by.

When Michelle shuffles out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, Peter’s scrambling eggs, pieces of toast piled onto a plate, two steaming mugs of coffee already set at the table. 

“Wow,” Michelle croaks, voice still scratchy from sleep and a sadness she can’t shake. 

“Woah,” Peter says when he turns to look at her. His eyes skid over her and then away, flush on his cheeks reaching the tips of his ears. He clears his throat. “I made breakfast.”

MJ’s wearing sweatpants and a thin, pale, purple sleep shirt. Something girly inside her preens at the rouge coloring his cheeks, and something else remembers she’s not wearing a bra, and the Peter standing in front of her has never seen her naked. The preening ends pretty quickly after that. 

“I see.”

“How’d you sleep?” he asks, glancing at her again, focused on her face. 

“Good. You?”

“Okay.”

Michelle nods. “The sofa isn’t very comfortable.”

“It’s not.” Peter laughs lightly, not fake, but not quite real, either. He slides the eggs onto two plates before slipping the plates onto the table. “I made you coffee,” he says, pointing toward the mug in front of her usual seat. 

“I can see that, too.” The corner of her mouth tips up as she pulls out her chair and sits down. 

He brings the toast to the table before sitting across from her. “I guess I didn’t sleep that well.”

Michelle hums. “Me neither. Someone thought it’d be a good idea to wake me up at 2 A.M.” 

Peter’s huff of a laugh is more genuine this time, and it traverses the space between them, warm and wonderful. 

She takes a sip of coffee, watching him watching her. “What?”

“How is it?”

“Good.” She takes another sip. A pinch of sugar. A splash of the oat milk she splurges on. It’s perfect. What she says is, “Really good.”

Peter’s body sags in relief as he shovels eggs onto his fork. 

“Why?” Michelle asks.

He attempts to speak with his mouth full, swallows, wipes at his lips with the back of his hand, and then seems to think better of it, grabbing a napkin. “I wasn’t thinking. I just made it, and then I realized I didn’t know what I was doing. And then I thought…”

“You did know what you were doing,” Michelle finishes. 

“Yeah.”

“It’s exactly the way I like it,” she says, like she’s sharing a secret. 

Peter’s eyes are soft when he looks at her, secret smile of his own curling at the corners of his mouth. 

Michelle looks away first, goosebumps prickling at her arms, because it’s the same as always, and completely different, and it feels just as good as it feels awful.

Michelle sits on the hard park bench and takes a bite of her sandwich. She has an hour between work and class, and her phone rings with a call from May.

“How are you?” May asks. 

“Okay,” MJ answers, watching a mom riffle through her purse for a penny to give her son. 

“How’s Peter?”

“You talk to him every day.”

May sighs, an amused sort of sound. “Well, I was going to come back to it, but how are you, really?”

“Okay, really.” Michelle picks at the crust of her peanut butter sandwich, crossing her ankles. “It’s really hard. But it’s okay.”

May is quiet for a moment, and Michelle hears the plunk of a coin in the fountain before May says, “It’s okay if you’re not okay, MJ.”

“How? Peter’s entire life has been upended. He went to work today for the first time since everything happened, and he doesn’t even know his boss’s name. He doesn’t remember where his socks are, and when he looks at me all he sees is the girl who stuck him on the bench for one of the only AcaDec competitions he bothered to show up for.”

“Honey,” May says. 

Michelle sounds a little hysterical. She knows that. She does. And yet, now that she’s started, she can't stop. Peter’s been back home for three days, and every time he asks her something he used to know, it’s a new blow to her heart. 

“It’s weird, and I have to do my best to pretend it’s not, because it’s not his fault he has fucking amnesia. It’s not his fault that this feels like the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, even if it isn’t, because it’s happening to me right now. I love him, and he doesn’t remember loving me at all.”

She exhales, tears pricking at her eyes again. 

“That sucks,” May says. 

“What?”

“It sucks,” she repeats, firm and understanding. “I know you don’t want to make Peter feel bad about something he can’t control. But it’s happening to you, too. It’s okay to be hurt.”

Michelle sniffles, patting at the corner of her eye with her napkin. “It’s selfish.”

May hums. “Maybe.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“You’ve never been one for bullshit,” May says, words steeped in fondness. “But your feelings matter here, MJ. And if it’s too much, when I get back, Peter can come stay with me. His bed is still made up.”

“I’m not giving up,” she scoffs.

May laughs, just the way Peter does. Or rather, Peter laughs just the way May does, learned behavior. “If you change your mind, the offer still stands.”

“I won’t,” she insists. 

It hurts like hell sometimes, but she loves him. And somewhere inside his stupid nerd brain, he loves her, too. He just can’t remember yet.

But he will, and when he does, Michelle doesn’t want him to think she couldn’t even last a week without sending him to May.

Michelle’s heart tugs in her chest every time Peter looks at her like he’s taking a mental note, learning something about her for the first time and filing it away. She wonders if he wants to remember because he knows he’s supposed to or because he thinks she’s worth remembering. 

Peter makes her coffee every morning, just as good as the cup he made the first day. He asks about cleaning supplies, and when MJ gets back from dinner with her brother, Peter’s washed the windows, swept the floor, vacuumed the rugs and the sofa. Every evening he asks about her day and lets her answer every _Jeopardy_ question first. 

Her heart flips every time he remembers something without realizing, like her order from the Indian restaurant a few blocks over (mirchi ka salan), how much she hates folding laundry (the most), or the color she paints her toes when she’s stressed (dark, cinnamon-y red).

Michelle’s having trouble finding new primary sources, and she has a meeting with her advisor next week. Her neck feels tight, her stomach knots, and she tosses and turns on the couch or in bed (Peter and MJ’s disagreement about who sleeps where has evolved into an alternating schedule, neither of them brave enough to float sharing the bed. Peter might feel uncomfortable, and Michelle thinks it might hurt too much). 

Staring at her laptop, online database pulled up, Michelle attempts to find a new way to word her search so it’ll point her in the direction of a usable result.

The front door rattles, and she waits. 

Peter isn’t as good at unlocking it as Michelle is, but he never was to begin with. 

“You’re late,” she says when she hears it creak open. 

“It took a while to find what I was looking for, because I didn’t know what I was looking for,” he says. 

“You’re lucky I’m not going to…” she trails off, looking up at him, affectionate half-joke drying in her throat. 

Peter grins, small bouquet of black dahlias in one hand, box of chocolates in the other. “I hope I didn’t mess it up.”

Michelle blinks, pushing her chair away from the table with so much force it scrapes against the floor before teetering. She reaches out to stop it from falling over before approaching Peter. Her instinct is to throw her arms around him and crush herself against him. She doesn’t because he hasn’t touched her at all since he lost his memory. 

He throws both hands forward, holding out her gifts. “Here.” 

“Thanks,” she says, voice thick and wet.

“Do you like them?” he asks as MJ takes the box and the bouquet. 

“I love them.” She puts the chocolates on the kitchen counter before rummaging through the cabinet for a vase. 

The chocolates are typical. The flowers aren’t. Black dahlias are hard to find on most days, even harder on a whim. Peter usually has to order them a few weeks in advance before their anniversary or her birthday. She doesn’t know how he found them now, how he remembered they’re her favorite, how he is giving them to her like it’s nothing when it’s not nothing. 

“Good. The florist said they’re pretty depressing flowers, but I think they’re kind of pretty.”

“I think they’re beautiful,” MJ agrees, standing on her tiptoes to remove the vase her mother gave her from the back of the cabinet. “They’re my favorite.”

“I know,” Peter says. 

MJ looks at him with wide eyes. 

He scratches at the back of his neck. “I didn’t know until I saw them. But when I saw them, I knew. I knew I'd given them to you before. The florist said only a handful of people ever order them, and I’ve called twice a year for the last few years asking how long it’ll take to get them in. You have really expensive taste, did you know that?”

“Peter,” she whispers. When she blinks, her eyes swim with unshed tears. 

“I’m not saying your taste is too expensive. I’m sorry. I’m just rambling because I want you to like them, and I hope it’s not too weird. Now I see how this is weird, and I--”

“Shut up.” 

MJ hugs him, resting her chin on his shoulder instead of ducking to bury her nose in his neck like she wants. Peter’s arms go around her waist, and he pulls her just a bit closer. 

“It’s not weird,” she says. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Peter grabs a couple of beers from the fridge and warms up the spaghetti from the other night while she cuts the dahlias’ stems to place in the vase.

“Dr. Cho thinks I’ll probably remember in the next two weeks,” Peter says. 

“Oh.”

Michelle has decided she doesn’t want to think about when Peter’s going to remember. It feels like too much pressure on him and too much expectation for her. The letdown will be too much if it takes longer than they think. 

The microwave beeps, and he removes the bowl, stirring the pasta. “But um, I can already understand why I fell in love with you.”

MJ bites her bottom lip, cutting the last stem and watching it fly toward the sink. 

“I want to remember. It’s hard to not know things. Everyone at the lab is really frustrated with me. And I know it’s been really hard on you. But even if I never remember, I really like you. Right now. I really like you right now.”

“I really like you, too,” she manages, swallowing down the lump in her throat and filling the vase with water from the sink. 

Michelle takes extra time arranging her bouquet. She knows Peter has dinner warmed up, growing cold. But she can’t look at him until she’s sure she won’t burst into tears. 

Not when he’s trying to be nice, but _I like you_ feels like a consolation prize compared to the love she doesn’t have anymore.

Or maybe she does have it, it’s just that she and Peter can’t reach it yet, buried inside him between the repairing synapses of his brain.

A week and a half, and Peter’s remembering more about the years he forgot: how much he hated his internship with Dr. Octavius his senior year, the water balloon fight he and Ned had in the quad, May’s original trip to D.C. to speak with Congress about legislation addressing more ways to help people displaced and struggling post-blip. 

He remembers small things about MJ. The small things that build a relationship: her favorite cereal is Honey Nut Cheerios, and she showers at night, and now that she’s working toward her doctorate, her favorite genre to read in her minimal spare time is memoir. It feels substantial. But it also feels flimsy. Like they’re building on a base that’s too small. Intellectually, he knows he loves her. 

It’s not the same as feeling it.

Peter isn’t supposed to patrol until his memory is back completely.

Still, he goes. 

It’s been a week and a half, and he itches for the thrill of swinging around the city, the responsibility pounds restlessly against his skin. He promises his body feels strong and ready, and he promises to be back soon. 

He asks Michelle not to tell May or any of his doctors. Reluctantly, she agrees. 

Then, after he leaves, she calls Ned to complain. 

“He’s such an idiot,” Ned says. A beat. “Can you believe he waited this long?”

Michelle feels her smile, easier and more natural than it’s been since she first received the call from the hospital. “I’m impressed, actually.”

“Me too. I definitely thought he was going to bolt on you those first couple of nights.”

“Thanks,” she says dryly, smile fading.

“You know what I mean. He felt like he was intruding.”

“Don’t pretend it would’ve been for my sake and not his inability to ignore his annoying hero complex.”

Ned chuckles. “Touche, Jones. How is that going anyway, his memory?”

He asks it so simply, as if Peter’s lack of it hasn’t had her heart in a vice grip for the last ten days. 

She shrugs even though he can’t see her. 

“Come on, not that bad,” Ned says. 

“No, it’s not.”

Also, it is. 

“He remembers every stupid thing he and I did together senior year, MJ. It’s coming back to him.”

“But what if this changes everything?”

“What do you mean?”

MJ sighs, pushing some hair out of her face and curling her legs beneath herself on the sofa. It’s her night sleeping here, and having assigned nights on the couch is starting to grate painfully every time she breathes. “He knows he loves me, but he doesn’t really. And when he remembers, it doesn’t mean he’s going to actually love me again. He’s just going to have the memories back. Feelings don’t work like that.”

“How do you know?”

She rolls her eyes. “Ned.”

“I’m serious. He forgot those four years, so he forgot how he felt. And when he remembers, he’ll remember how he felt. Besides, he already feels it.”

“Shut up.”

“He does. He doesn’t want to like, freak you out.”

She narrows her eyes, biting at the side of her thumb. “You have to tell me now. It’s FOS law.”

“I do not. It’s best friend law.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“Neither is FOS law!” he says, voice rising in frustration. 

Michelle smirks. “Come on, Ned.” 

Looking out the window at the pale pink and purple bruise of the sunset, she gets more serious, adds, “Please.”

He groans. “You cannot ever tell him I told you.”

“I’m the best secret keeper you know.”

His groan becomes a resigned sigh, and Michelle knows he’s scrubbing his hand over his face. 

She also knows she won. 

“He couldn’t believe he was ever lucky enough to get a date with you. And I was like, _Right, dude?_ ”

She huffs a laugh.

“He tells me stupid things he notices about you. Like how you always put your right shoe on first and take it off second. Or how you used the word intrepid in a sentence. He thinks you’re great.”

It bubbles in her chest like an expensive glass of champagne at one of Pepper’s fundraisers, but she says, “Because he knows he’s supposed to think that.”

“He already thought that, MJ. He thought it in high school, and he definitely thought it our freshman year of college when he was too scared to ask you out.”

“Liar.”

“Truther,” he counters. 

She bites at the corner of her lip. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It has to mean something. He still loves you,” Ned says, certain. “He never stopped.”

Michelle doesn’t know if she believes that, in theory or in practice. But nothing Ned says is going to convince her, so she drops it, pivoting the conversation to the surprise party for Ned’s younger (now older) sister.

Michelle opens the apartment door, blinks, and is immediately crushed with the force of Peter’s hug as he backs her against the wood and breathes her in. 

“Are you okay?” she asks, her keys clanking against the ground as she hugs him back. 

“I missed you,” he says. His nose brushes against her jaw, and then he’s kissing behind her ear, kissing that spot behind her ear. 

“What,” she starts, too breathy. “Were you sorting laundry and suddenly remembered unhooking my bra?”

He laughs against her ear, easing away from her, hands light on her waist. “No. Well, I mean, yeah. But I also remember when you tripped taking off your tights after we saw _The Nutcracker_ with May and Happy. I remember the first time I ever saw you cry was while watching _Lilo and Stitch_ in your off-campus apartment before midterms, and I remember how you had one pin in your hair, here,” he says, tucking a few pieces back above her right ear, gentle, “the first time I told you I loved you, and you smiled and said ‘same,’ before saying, ‘I love you, too.’” 

“Peter, I swear to god.”

“I love you,” he says. His eyes are kind, sincere, filled with a galaxy of knowledge, sparkling with a confidence that makes her knees buckle. 

He squeezes her hip, and Michelle’s bottom lip trembles. 

“I feel the same way I did when I was planning to pick up a pastrami on rye for you on the way home from patrol that Saturday. I lost two weeks. _We_ lost two weeks. But I love you, and I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for forgetting and making you think I might not remember.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she manages, tongue heavy in her mouth. 

“Still,” he says, like he knows it hurt her all the same.

Michelle traces her fingers along his stretched-out shirt collar. “I love you, too.” 

“Same.” His mouth quirks up.

“Loser,” she huffs, the word swirling in cotton candy fluff, fond and sweet. 

Peter leans close, nose bumping Michelle’s, breath hot where it fans across her face, waiting. She surges forward to kiss him, carding her fingers through his hair and then across his broad shoulders. He pushes her against the door again, his entire body pressing solidly into hers.

They break, foreheads together, and through panting breaths he asks, “How’d the meeting with your advisor go?”

And when she wraps her legs around his waist so he can carry her to the bedroom (“I’m never sleeping on the couch again, Peter.” “Deal.”), he steps on her keys, yelping, hands slipping down her thighs. 

She laughs and tightens her grip around him, but he doesn’t drop her.

She didn’t think he would. 

“I love you,” he reminds her.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

She does. Whatever doubts crept into her mind over the last two weeks melt when he looks at her, their history clear in his eyes, in the curve of his hand over her knee, in the press of his mouth against her own. 

MJ hums from her spot on the edge of their bed, tugging him closer. “Couldn’t hurt to remind me.”

“Do you have amnesia now?” he asks, light. 

The spot in her heart is still a little sore, but his thumb swipes across her cheekbone like a bandage. “No.”

“I love you,” Peter tells her again, a sealing kiss to her temple. 

“Please don’t forget,” she says, hand twisting in his shirt. MJ feels like an exposed nerve, raw and pulsing. 

“I’ll try my best,” Peter promises, because he knows she doesn’t like false ones. 

“Okay.”

She turns her head so her cheek cradles in Peter’s callused palm. 

They scoot up the bed together, and MJ tucks herself into his arms. He tells her about the wrinkle that forms between her eyebrows whenever her dad and brother start conniving during a game of Risk, how her hands have stopped trembling when she patches him up, and how he feels terrible about it because that means she’d had to do it too often. He recounts how distracting it was to have her hand settled against his thigh the first time they watched Baz Luhrmann’s _Romeo + Juliet_. 

Peter tells MJ he loves her over and over again, an apology and a balm. 

She believes him over and over again, eyelashes sticky, heartbeat steady, safe and happy. 

“Want to hear about the first time I knew I loved you?” he asks. 

She does. 

Peter tells her. 

And then he says: “I knew again. Two days ago, when I crawled back through the window after patrol, and you gave me this sort of half-smile, and I knew I was home.”

“Yeah?” Michelle asks, lifting her head to look at him. 

“Yeah. Thank you.”

“For sort of smiling at you?” she asks, doing it again. 

Peter laughs, a cozy, warm blanket of a sound that vibrates in Michelle’s chest. “That, and for everything.”

She considers saying something else, something about how she knew she was home the second he hugged her, when he looked at her and didn’t just know how she takes her coffee, but remembered the learning. 

Instead, she says, “You’re welcome.”

Over a dinner of cereal, MJ tells Peter the thing about home, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can also find me yelling on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/saoirseegot) and [Tumblr](https://amyabbotts.tumblr.com/).


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